NOooo Not Again! Oil sheen spreading from Gulf after NEW platform explosion
By ALAN SAYRE, Associated Press Writer
(Breaking)
NEW ORLEANS, La. – A mile-long oil sheen spread Thursday from an offshore petroleum platform burning in the Gulf of Mexico off Lousiana, west of the site of BP’s massive spill.
Coast Guard Petty Officer Bill Coklough said the sheen, about 100 feet wide, was spotted near the platform owned by Houston-based Mariner Energy Inc.
He said Mariner had deployed three firefighting vessels to the site and one already was in place fighting the blaze.
The Coast Guard says no one was killed in the explosion and fire, which was reported by a commercial helicopter flying over the site around 9 a.m. CDT. All 13 people aboard the rig were rescued as they floated in the nearby water in survival outfits called gumby suits.
The platform is in about 340 feet of water and about 100 miles south of Vermilion Bay on the central Louisiana coast. It’s location is considered shallow water, much less than the approximately 5,000 feet where BP’s well spewed oil and gas for three months after an April rig explosion.
All 13 people aboard the rig were found floating in the water, sticking close together, Coast Guard spokesman Chief Petty Officer John Edwards said.
“These guys had the presence of mind, used their training to get into those gumby suits before they entered the water. It speaks volumes to safety training and the importance of it because beyond getting off the rig there’s all the hazards of the water such as hypothermia and things of that nature,” Edwards said.
All were being flown to a hospital in Houma to be checked over. Coast Guard Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau said one person was injured, but the platform’s owner, Houston-based Mariner Energy, Inc., said there were no injuries.
“Mariner has notified and is working with regulatory authorities in response to this incident. The cause is not known, and an investigation will be undertaken,” the company said in a statement. It said the platform was located on Vermilion Block 380, approximately 100 miles off the Louisiana coast.
The platform is a fixed petroleum platform that was in production at the time of the fire, according to a homeland security operational update obtained by The Associated Press.
The update said the platform was producing about 58,800 gallons of oil and 900,000 cubic feet of gas per day. The platform can store 4,200 gallons of oil.
Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two airplanes and three cutters were dispatched to the scene from New Orleans, Houston and Mobile, Ala., Ben-Iesau said. She said authorities do not know whether oil was leaking from the site.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said President Barack Obama was in a national security meeting and did not know whether Obama had been informed of the explosion.
“We obviously have response assets ready for deployment should we receive reports of pollution in the water,” Gibbs said.
Mariner Energy focuses on oil and gas exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico. In April, Apache Corp., another independent petroleum company, announced plans to buy Mariner in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $3.9 billion, including the assumption of about $1.2 billion of Mariner’s debt. That deal is pending.
Apache spokesman Bob Dye said the platform is in shallow water. Responding to any oil spill in shallow water would be much easier than in deep water, where crews depend on remote-operated vehicles access equipment on the sea floor. Mariner said in initial flyover for no hydrocarbon spill.
A company report said the well was drilled in the third quarter of 2008. (under Obama’s watch!)
The platform is about 200 miles west of BP’s blown-out well. On Friday, BP was expected to begin the process of removing the cap and failed blowout preventer, another step toward completion of a relief well that would put a finals eal on the well. The BP-leased rig Deepwater Horizon exploded April 20, killing 11 people and setting off a three-month leak that totaled 206 million gallons of oil .
Ron Paul on FOX Business News 09-01-10!
Ron Paul on FOX Business News
No Military Cover-Up Of Pat Tillman’s Death! Donald Rumsfeld’s Assistant At The Time
September 02, 2010 News Corp
Arizona Now Has ‘Whopping 30’ National Guard Troops and 15 Billboard Signs Warning Citizens About Drug Cartels Operating on Public Lands
(CNSNews.com) – Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said requests by Arizona law enforcement personnel and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) for 3,000 National Guard troops along the state’s border with Mexico have been answered so far with 1 percent of that number deployed there this week.
“We have a whopping 30 [National Guard troops] this week that are showing up,” Babeu told CNSNews.com. “It’s less than a half-hearted measure designed to fail.”
But the federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has placed 15 signs along a 60-mile stretch of Interstate 8 that links San Diego with Phoenix and Tucson warning travelers of drug cartels and human trafficking operations.
“DANGER – PUBLIC WARNING, TRAVEL NOT RECOMMENDED,” read the signs placed along Interstate 8. “Visitors May Encounter Armed Criminals and Smuggling Vehicles Traveling at High Rates of Speed. Stay Away From Trash, Clothing, Backpacks, and Abandoned Vehicles.”
“BLM Encourages Visitors To Use Public Land North of Interstate 8,” the signs say.
Exploded Oil Rig ‘Was Not Producing Oil’
September 02, 2010 CNN
NAACP launches coalition watchdog site to ‘monitor’ Tea Party ‘racists’
The NAACP partnered with Media Matters (Soros), Think Progress and New Left Media to launch teapartytracker.org, a website that will specifically publish and monitor “racism and other forms of extremism within the Tea Party movement.”
Media Matters and Think Progress representatives said their content and reporting haven’t changed and that the NAACP approached their organizations seeking only to republish select content they’ve produced. The NAACP’s new teapartytracker.org is aimed specifically at highlighting “racism” in the Tea Party.
New Left Media, the duo of Chase Whiteside and Erick Stoll who use a “Trojan trick” to get interviews with Tea Partiers, is also a partner organization on the new site.
As for what Media Matters, New Left Media, Think Progress and the NAACP plan to do with teapartytracker.org, Think Progress editor Faiz Shakir and Media Matters Vice President for Research and Communications Ari Rabin-Havt said the NAACP contacted them about sharing content related to the Tea Party.
Shakir said the website isn’t meant to attack the Tea Party, only to “hold it accountable.”
“When they display intolerance and the kinds of racial signs that we’ve seen and the kinds of angry rhetoric, there’s nobody pushing back on that rhetoric or to check the record or fact-check it,” Shakir said. “I think it [the website] should be viewed in light of the NAACP being opposed to the intolerant elements of the Tea Party.”
Conservative media guru Andrew Breitbart, who was once a victim of New Left Media’s trickery (though he says he doesn’t object to that type of journalism), said Think Progress and Media Matters shouldn’t, by any means, partner with an advocacy group, especially the NAACP, in trying to the paint the Tea Party a certain color.
“It’s called projection,” Breitbart said. “The alliance of the left, the Think Progress, the Media Matters and the NAACP are projecting onto the Tea Party. The accusations are a projection of who the coordinated, well-funded left is. They are manufacturing the racism. They are the ones who are fomenting the violence, the ones who are the only perpetrators of violence over the last year.”
Shakir thinks his organization, though, unlike the NAACP, has held itself to higher journalistic standards. He said Think Progress is a group of “advocacy journalists,” but that his staff values fact-checking and reporting truth.
“I would argue that we are showing both sides,” Shakir said. “If we’re talking to Tea Party person or putting their picture up, we’re giving you their perspective and, also, obviously, pushing back with our own. Whatever the issue may be, I think we [Think Progress] are taking on all fronts of it, whereas the teapartytrack.org site seems to be a little more focused.”
Rabin-Havt said the NAACP contacted Media Matters about publishing content from its general RSS feed and “we’re more than happy to let anyone use our content and host and so we’re more than happy for them [the NAACP] to use it.”
He continued, “There are elements within the Tea Party movement that display extremism and racism and other aspects that should be noted. Our [Media Matters’] goal is to document
conservative misinformation in the media and document conservative groups.”
Gunman killed: Video of Discovery channel hostage drama
Police have shot dead an armed man who took three people hostage at the Discovery Channel headquarters in the U.S. All those taken hostage managed to escape. Officers had been negotiating with him for several hours after he burst into the building with a gun and canisters strapped to his chest. US media say the dead man had been known for his protests against the cable channel.
Suspect in Maryland hostage situation published angry online manifesto
(CNN) — The man believed to be holding a small number hostages at the Discovery Channel headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, is an environmental protester who has posted online rants against the network in the past, a senior law enforcement source close to the investigation said Wednesday.
The man was identified by law enforcement sources as 43-year-old James Lee.
An angry manifesto posted by Lee on a website called SaveThePlanetProtest.com repeatedly refers to humans as “filth” and demands that the Discovery Channel “stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants.”
“Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is,” the 1,149-word statement says.
“Humans are the most destructive, filthy, pollutive creatures around and are wrecking what’s left of the planet with their false morals and breeding culture,” it continues.
Lee also blasts immigration, farming, weapons of mass destruction, automotive pollution, “and the whole blasted human economy.”
Gunman takes hostage at Discovery Channel headquarters
A gunman has taken at least one person hostage in the headquarters of the Discovery Channel in the US, according to police.
The man, who is reported to have packages resembling explosives strapped to his chest, entered the Discovery Communications building in Silver Spring, Maryland, tonight.
Maryland police confirmed there was an ongoing situation in the building, and said the man had taken “a small number of hostages”.
Speaking in a press conference outside the building, an unnamed police officer said negotiations with the man were ongoing and had been continuing for nearly an hour. He could not confirm the number of hostages. “We are going on the assumption that there are explosive devices,” the officer said.
ACLU Sues to Block Targeted Killings
In a case that promises to test the limits of war in the age of terror, the ACLU has filed suit to stop the US government’s practice of targeted assassinations of suspected terrorists around the world.
“The right to life is the most fundamental of all rights,” the ACLU argues in its complaint. “Outside the context of armed conflict, the intentional use of lethal force without prior judicial process is an abridgement of this right except in the narrowest and most extraordinary circumstances.”
The plaintiff in the case is the Nasser al-Aulaqui (Awlaki), the father of Anwar al Awlaki, the fiery Islamist preacher in Yemen who has become a key figure in inspiring, recruiting and possibly directing al Qaeda and other terrorists.
Awlaki reportedly met with two of the 9/11 hijackers, he was in contact with the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Hassan, and he met with the Christmas Day bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmuttallab.
Anwar al Awlaki was born in the United States and is a US citizen. President Obama has ordered his death.
The point of the ACLU suit is that presidents don’t have that power.
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